Telenor Plus AS to distribute B4U in Northern Europe
B4U, the television channel network on Monday announced its tie-up with Telenor Plus AS, a Norway-based multinational, providing satellite and telecommunications services, to distribute the channels B4U Music and B4U movies in the Nordic countries, UK and Europe via DTH and cable. The transmission of the two channels will commence in early August.

Commenting on being the first Indian Channel in this part of the world, Kishore Lulla, Chairman and CEO, B4U, said, "we are very proud and happy to be the first Indian Channel to be seen in these countries. The tie-up with Telenor will ensure that South Asians in these territories will benefit from the wide range of their services. This service will initially be provided free to air but would be encrypted within a month of launch".

ESC awarded for contribution to trade with Japan
The Electronic and Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), an organisation under the ministry of information technology has been awarded the commendation certificate by Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) for its contribution to trade support activities. "The export promotion programmes initiated by the organisation have helped in increasing software exports to Japan to Rs 350 crore in 1998-99 from merely Rs 26 crore in 1994-95," ESC said in a statement at New Delhi. ESC, is the only organisation among the developing countries to have been selected for the honour this year, it said.

Revenue-sharing for paging firms under consideration
The government is considering the recommendation of the group on IT, telecom and convergence to allow migration of paging companies from licence fee system to revenue-sharing, Lok Sabha was informed on Monday. Minister of state for communications, Tapan Sikdar told the house in a written reply that the group had recommended that the paging industry be allowed to migrate to revenue-sharing with effect from August 1, 1999.

SCG in QA services pact with indiaengineering.com
SGC Group (Societe Generale de Surveillance), the world's largest international quality control, inspection, testing and verification organisation on Monday announced its strategic pact with indiaengineering.com. This is a first of its kind alliance for the Indian market. SGC will provide vendor assessment services, quality and quantity certification, valuation services and source authentication and certification to indiaengineering.com's members. These wide ranging quality, quantity and related technical services, available at a click of a button, will help create and build trust between buyers and sellers, by connecting the "physical" to the "virtual".

Bunka Orient brings `Leadtools' for designers
Bunka Orient India (BOI) the Indian arm of the Bunka Group of Japan has though a strategic alliance with Lead Technologies of USA released the latest version of `Leadtools', a family of comprehensive tool-kits designed to help programmers integrate colour, grayscale and document imaging into their applications quickly and easily. Leadtools gives developers the most flexible and powerful imaging technology, offering imaging technology in 19 general categories.